


swim along

by ppeachys



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ppeachys/pseuds/ppeachys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>one thing's for sure - an orphan is the last thing Keith wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter 1 - dear dad/from keith

**Author's Note:**

> so i know a lot of people have diff hc for the characters but one thing i noticed is that keith's last name is "kogane" which i believe is japanese! but many artists depicted him as a korean, and i really liked that idea but i also didn't want to let go of his japanese heritage either.. so i made his mom korean and his dad japanese! also lance is a mermaid because he's so tan and just seems like a water person yknow.. and keith is all pale and probs doesn't go outside much? he doesn't strike me as a water person so.. there's just my reasoning behind my head cannons and i hope you enjoy reading!

Otousan _, It’s Keith, your son. Keith Kogane.  
I’m nine now. I’ll be turning ten, soon. That means it’s almost ten years since you’ve been gone.  
_ Eomma _is scared of water. We live so near the beach but she never lets me go there. I see so many people playing there, everyday. I wish I could go there.  
I hope you come back soon. I wonder where you are? Did you sail all the way back to your home country, Japan? You should have taken _ Eomma _back to Korea, too. She is teaching me lots of Korean. But she says her Japanese is bad. She says if you were here you’d be able to teach me Japanese._  
_All the other kids have dads. They know soccer and football and baseball and how to fish…_  
 _Allura and Coran say hi. They hope you will come back, too. Allura likes to come over to make tea. My mom teaches her Korean tea recipes. Also, she makes matcha tea for everyone and it’s supposed to remind us of you. It’s bitter._  
  
_Allura says that’s how she feels about you, too._

_-Keith_

“I think that’s all there is to proofread,” Allura says. Keith hears a tinge of sadness in her voice. “Your writing is getting better and better. When your father gets this, he’ll want to come back immediately.” She ruffles Keith’s hair, giving him a sad smile. “I’ll go get a bottle.”  
Keith starts to roll up the paper into a thin rod that would fit in the bottle’s opening. His dad was a Japanese sailor, who’d gotten lost at sea shortly after Keith was born. He didn’t really miss him. He was just bitter, because all the other kids had two parents. There was even a kid with two girl parents. But Keith only had one.  
Allura returns with the bottle. She hands it to Keith, who stuffs the rolled up paper into the opening and secures it with a cork.  
Keith’s mom pokes her head into the room. “Allura, don’t let him get near the water,” she warns.  
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Kogane,” Allura replies assuringly. “We’ll be off now!”  
“Bye, _eomma_ ,” Keith smiles brightly, and then takes Allura’s hand.  
“ _Annyeong_ , Keithy,” his mom waves at him.

The sun was high in the sky as they approached the dock. Waves crashed along the shore, creating a deafening roar that echoed in Keith’s ears. The shoreline stretched out on either side of him for miles. Seagulls crowed and fluttered about. People were littered all over the beach with multicolored umbrellas and towels, kids played in the clear, blue water that Keith was so terrified of getting near to. It was a myriad of noises and music, as it was every day from dawn till dusk.  
They stop right before the grass molds into sand, and Allura gives him a reassuring pat on the back. “Go call for the fishermen to send it off for you.”  
Keith cups his hands around his mouth and takes a deep breath. “Hunk! Pidge!”  
Two figures at the edge of the dock, one large and brawny, and the other tiny in stark contrast to the former, look back at Keith and Allura and wave. They were unmistakably Hunk and Pidge. “Got another message in a bottle this year?” Pidge calls.  
“We’ll be happy to send it off for you!” Hunk adds.  
The muscular lifeguard, sitting on his tall, white chair, notices Keith and Allura. His head is shaved, aside from a white tuft of hair. A long, faded scar runs across his nose. “Morning, Keith,” he yells. “And morning to you, too, Allura!”  
“Good morning, Shiro,” Allura gives him her princess-like wave. Keith could have sworn Shiro winked at her.  
Hunk and Pidge make their way over. “Maybe this will be the year,” Hunk tells Keith reassuringly, taking the bottle from his hands. Pidge nods in agreement.  
“Thank you,” Keith tells his fisherman friends. He was jealous that they got to spend all day at the beach, just fishing and having fun.  
“Of course,” Pidge beams, and hugs Keith before running off. Hunk and Pidge run to the edge of the dock, and Hunk casts Keith one last toothy smile before he winds up his arms and throws it far into the sea.  
Somewhere in the distance, Keith sees the sparkle of blue fish scales and the splash of the bottle.  
  
_\---YEARS IN THE FUTURE---_

Otousan _,  
__I’m 17 now.  
You’re still not back yet. I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve had to do everything by myself. My friends taught me everything that their fathers taught them, because you weren’t here for me. _ Eomma _is sick. The doctors say it’s a fever, but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.  
_ Otousan _, will I become an orphan?_  
_I have nothing to say to you anymore._  
-Keith

Keith inhales deeply, reading over his letter one last time. It was personal, much more than any of his other letters. Allura had stopped proofreading for him years ago, but this year Keith was glad that she wasn’t there to read it. She’d think he was a heartless monster.  
He rolls up the paper and heads for the recycle bin, where all the glass bottles were thrown into with a clanking noise. Keith stuffs his letter into one, and places a cork on the opening.  
Before Keith leaves, he goes to visit his ill mother. His eyes soften when he sees her, frail, bedridden, helpless in a cruel world. She looks like a still porcelain doll, except her features are haggard and wrinkled. “Keith,” she says almost incomprehensibly when he entered her room. She spots the bottle in his hand, and her eyes turn melancholy. “Don’t go too close to the ocean,” she warns him for the umpteenth time.  
“I know, Mom,” he says - but this time, instead of the usual sassy tone he uses, Keith mutters it gently, planting a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you later.”

But Keith had his own plans.  
When he arrives at the dock, he sees Shiro and Allura from where he’s standing on the grass and calls out for him. Allura looks ethereal even with her floppy hat and sun dress. Shiro has his arm around her waist, a life preserver on his other arm, and he looks happier than Keith’s ever known him. After three years, they already look like a married couple. Keith pictures them shopping at the local grocery store together and snorts.  
“Hey, Keith!” Shiro waves at him.  
“Keith! Delivering your letter today?” Allura asks.  
“Not today, no,” Keith grins smugly. “Shiro, will you teach me how to swim?”  
The words spill out before Keith can stop himself. The thought of swimming gave Keith too much anxiety to bear, but he was almost an adult now - he had to learn eventually. Though it was against his mother’s wishes, Keith was already yearning for freedom and wanted to deliver this letter himself. As a result, he’d barely thought about this and told himself that he’d just wing it.  
Shiro’s jaw drops. Allura has a similar expression on her face. Then they share a look.  
“Shiro, are you going to?” Allura asks him.  
Shiro furrows his brow in deep thought. “Are you going to tell his mother?”  
She covers her mouth and gives a cheery laugh, eyes squeezed shut from how wide her smile is. “We can keep it a secret,” Allura finally decides, smirking at both Shiro and Keith as she says this.

“First, we need to get you a pair of swimming trunks,” Shiro tells him as the three walk together to the surf shop.  
Keith’s favorite color was red, so he chose a pair of red Hawaiian-patterned trunks. He went to the changing room, stripped down and tried on his new swim gear.  
He was short, but his body was toned and muscular from the fencing lessons his mom had signed him up for. Plus, whenever Shiro was free, he’d play football with him. He may have not been able to play in the water his whole life, but Keith found other ways to keep himself in shape. Now, he was finally going to swim.  
It takes a while just to get Keith near the water. Hunk and Pidge watch him struggle with Shiro for a while. “You know, you could just walk to the edge of the dock and throw your letter in,” Pidge suggests.  
“This guy’s gonna push me off, I just know it!” Keith retorts angrily, gesturing at Shiro. “Besides, I wanna learn how to swim before I throw it in. It won’t count if I don’t.”  
“You’ll never learn how to swim if you can’t even touch the water,” Shiro scolds him playfully. “You shower everyday. It’s just like that.”  
“But … there’s salt in it! And it smells weird,” Keith protests, scurrying away from the shoreline out of Shiro’s grasp.  
“You were the one who wanted to learn,” Shiro says, raising his arms and letting them flop back to his sides helplessly.  
Keith lays on his back in a relaxed form of crab-position, glaring distrustfully at the ocean waves receding and approaching again. Finally, he takes a deep breath and stands up, ignoring the shudder he feels when he imagines the salt water bathing over him.  
“Ready to try again?” Shiro asks.  
Keith nods.  
“Just put your feet in, let the waves wash over them,” the lifeguard instructs him, gently pushing him towards the ocean.  
Keith stops right before the waves touch him.  
“Keith, you’re such a wimp,” Pidge calls.  
“You know what?!” he yells back angrily. “I’ll do it. I’ll touch the disgusting sea water.”  
Pidge claps and laughs with glee. “Boy, he ‘boutta do it!” she cheers.  
Keith shoots her a glare. Gingerly, he nudges the wet sand with his big toe. Then he steps further in, and watches the waves come closer and closer to him.  
He closes his eyes. And the cold washes over his feet...with a hint of seaweed.  
“Boy, he did it!” Hunk continues Pidge’s chant.  
“Oh, _quiznak_ , what is that?” Keith screams, shaking his foot to dislodge the seaweed stuck to it. It was slimy and stringy.  
“It’s just seaweed, dude,” Shiro puts two hands up in a sheepish “calm down” motion. “It won’t hurt you.”  
“But it’s disgusting. Is this stuff everywhere?”  
The lifeguard shrugs. “Yep. It’s not bad though, trust me.”  
Keith makes a disgusted face.  
“Let’s go deeper in,” Shiro says, laughing. “It’s cold, but your body will adjust.”  
They waded further into the ocean and the water level rose to Keith’s thighs. “It’s too cold, dammit,” Keith said through chattering teeth.  
“Stop being a baby,” Shiro gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Watch.” The man took a deep breath, and then disappeared underwater. His arms resurfaced to swim freestyle out to the boundaries of the beach waters. Shiro’s head popped out of the water in the distance, and he gave a triumphant wave. “Vamos, amigos!” he yelled. Keith could barely hear him over the crashing waves.  
Over the next few days, Shiro taught Keith different strokes and the younger boy soon got used to the salt water. He learned everything from treading to butterfly stroke.  
“Keith, I’m so sorry, but your freestyle looks like a flailing duck,” Shiro told him one day, forcing back his laughter but not being able to repress a smile.  
His mother never knew of these swimming lessons. But she was getting sicker and paler by the day, and no one knew what to do about it. In desperation and futility, Keith prayed for his father to come back soon; he’d know what to do. But it had been 16 years without answer - this year was no different.  
  
Not too far from where Keith was, a merman stirred at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. His bedcave was round and dark, and a beaded curtain made of shells hung from the entry way. Pastel-colored rocks and a blue bracelet occupied space around his cave.  
“ _Mi paquete_ is supposed to arrive today!” the merman yelled, swimming out of his bedcave. “Or, well, it was supposed to arrive sometime this week, but it still hasn’t yet!”  
“Lance, _vete a dormir!_ It’s so early!” a female voice yelled from another bedcave somewhere nearby.  
“I can’t, _Mamá_ , I have to check on Keith!”  
“You don’t even know what he looks like,” another girl chimed in, sleepily.  
“I’m just going to ignore that, _hermana!_ ” Lance gave a kick with his shimmery blue tail and headed for the sky - or at least, the surface of the water.  
He poked his head out of the water and shook out his drenched hair. Judging by the sun high in the sky, it was almost midday. The night before, the merfolk got together to party and drink, and most of his family members - including him - were hungover. Lance rubbed his temples to clear his headache. _Keith, Keith, Keith, is there anyone here who looks like a Keith?_ he thought, but in his mind he’d never met a Keith before.  
The merboy turned his head to look towards the shore. Keith had to be a human. There weren’t many people around; most tourists came in the afternoon or the evening for their romantic boardwalk ventures. But there was a group of human boys playing near the dock.  
And one boy in particular was the most beautiful boy Lance had ever seen in his life.


	2. chapter 2 - calma, hombre

The boy has a slicked back mullet, black hairs sticking to his nape from swimming in the water. His swimming isn’t quite as graceful as Lance expected - but his shoulders - his broad shoulders, from his collarbones down to his pelvis; it was as close to perfection as a human boy can get - even more beautiful than that seemingly ethereal lady, Allura, who had dark chocolate skin but bright teal eyes and flowing silver hair. His figure is slightly tan, but who in Texas City isn’t?   
Lance is far enough from the group of humans that they’d only see him as an insignificant speck in the distance, but his eyesight is good enough to note the other boy’s dark, mysterious eyes that sparkled like the ocean waters. Lance feels a blush rising to his cheeks as he imagines those eyes staring into his.  
With a shake of his head, Lance refocuses on the task at hand. He spies an oh-so-familiar glass object on the dock. It is his paquete, the one that arrives on time every year, the one that always starts with “otousan” and ends in “-Keith” and lately they’ve been getting more angry and spite-filled and Lance, with a jolt, makes the connection - the lightbulb goes off, the puzzle piece snaps perfectly into place with a resounding click that echoes in his head - that beautiful boy right there is Keith, Lance is sure of it.  
Lance watches Keith, engrossed in every move he makes, watches how his muscles stretch and bulge and his hips move like he is built for land, not for the water. But the boy is learning.   
And now he is coming to him. 

Keith feels a pair - no, more than one - of hands on his back and on his shoulders, pushing him closer and closer to the edge of the slippery dock. “Cannon ball, cannon ball, cannon ball,” everyone chants. Even Shiro joins in.   
Keith raises his hands - “alright, alright,” he yells. He takes a deep breath, jumps, and curls his body up in fetal position.  
The water hits him like he’d walked into a room with air conditioning. But much, much harder and - oh quiznak, is that seaweed? Keith seems to sink down in the water for ages from the force of the dive. Bubbles form columns all around him and he squeezes his eyes shut as tight as possible.   
The dock seems farther and farther away. His friends’ shouts are muffled and Keith feels light-headed. Desperately, he kicks for the surface to no avail. It doesn’t get any closer - it just seems to move farther and farther away. A strand of seaweed drifts across his eyes, obscuring his vision.   
All of the sudden, he isn’t sinking anymore. Light falls upon him, and he realizes he is being cradled in someone’s arms. Keith sputters and coughs as soon as his head emerges from the ocean - he is built for land, not water.   
Tired and throat hurting, Keith falls limp as he feels himself being dragged through the water and laid to rest on a fortunately placed rock jutting out from the ocean. The hands on his waist are slick with water but smooth and not calloused like his are, like it’s beholder had lived a relatively easy life before this.   
Blinking the water out of his eyes, Keith squints at the sunlight and turns his head, letting out a quiet groan. “Keith?” a blurry figure asks.  
Keith doesn’t recognize the figure standing over him. With a jolt, he struggles to get up. His arms are sore. His whole body is sore. But he needed to get back home, quick. What if his eomma needed him?   
“Hello, handsome,” Keith hears the other person muttering. His eyes come into focus, and they are met by another pair of milky brown eyes, half-lidded and belonging to a lanky, Mexican boy with tousled, chestnut hair.  
Keith’s gaze travels down the other boy’s bony torso - and he screams.

“Calma, hombre!” Lance yells, catching Keith before he falls off the rock. “I’m just a merman!”  
Keith regains his composure and, almost as if it was forbidden, sneaks a peek at where Lance’s legs were supposed to be. His skin naturally blends into the shiny blue scales. Merfolk are real?  
“I’m Lance,” he says, trying to get Keith to stop gawking at his tail.  
“Wha-” is all Keith can stutter, his eyes still trained on Lance’s monstrosity.   
“It’s just a mermaid tail. You humans have legs, we merfolk have tails!” Lance shrugs nonchalantly. “No big deal. You can touch it if you want.”  
Keith scoots over to the edge of the rock as far from Lane as possible, shooting him a distrustful glare.  
“Oh, come on, don’t be shy!” Lance grins, and moves closer to Keith.   
“...Where’s your...dick?” is the first thing Keith asks, his face growing rosy.   
It takes a few seconds for Lance to get over his surprise and respond. “...Why do you wanna know?”  
“I…” Keith is flustered now, and buries his face in his hands. “Nevermind.”  
Lance raises his eyebrows. “If you really want to know, it’s hidden under my scales.” He pauses a moment before adding, “It comes out sometimes.”   
Shit. He really should not have said that.  
Keith covers his mouth and gives what sounds like a cough. Then Lance notices his back shaking - the stoic boy is laughing.   
Then, he feels a hand on his tail. Keith has gingerly started stroking it, running his fingers along every scale. His calloused hands are surprisingly light and delicate and gives Lance a slight ticklish feeling.   
“It’s pretty, your tail,” Keith whispers, raising his head to look into Lance’s amber-ish eyes.   
Lance notices Keith’s eyes are even more beautiful than his scales. A beautiful, glossy shade of royal purple. It almost seemed unrealistic.   
The Mexican boy shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and focuses instead at Keith’s red trunks. “So, what about you guys?”  
Keith reddens again, and they both giggle like two little girls. “Well, our clothes are kind of like your scales,” he explains, embarrassed. “Otherwise they work just the same. Anyways, uh,” Keith shifts his body, away from Lance. “How do you know my name?”  
Lance gives him a knowing smile. “Wait here.” It’s not like he could escape, and swim back to shore, anyway. They were in the middle of the ocean and could barely see the beach. At least, Keith couldn’t. Merfolks’ eyesight was perfect compared to humans’.  
The Mexican boy swims to his bedcave where almost ten years’ worth of bottled messages were piled up - all from Keith. He carries them in his arms back to Keith’s rock.   
Lance resurfaces, beaming triumphantly at his guest and cradling the bottles for him to see. “Look! I’ve been collecting these!”  
Keith’s eyes widen. “Those are mine!” he exclaims, taking one at random. “You’ve had these this whole time? You read all of them?” He’s angry now, and lunges at Lance. Lance flicks his tail, quickly swimming backwards out of Keith’s reach.   
“I-” Lance stammers. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet you. I’m sorry...but you are lovely, guapo.” He winks, as scared as he is right now.   
“They were for my father, you son of a-” Keith clings desperately to the rock, not wanting to drown again and be saved by Lance once more. “They were for my father! And now he’ll never be able to find them!”   
“Oh-well-I mean-I got that, from reading them, but l-let’s be real here-Keith! Calma, calma!” Lance dodges again as Keith jumps into the water to go after him. “Wait! I’ll give them back, just stop trying to kill me for a sec!”  
Keith, still barely being able to stay afloat, swims flusteredly back to the rock. He watches as Lance finds a smooth rock to set the individual bottles on.   
After Lance finishes, he turns to Keith, mouth open to explain.  
Keith, angry as he was before, cuts him off. “I can’t believe you! Is this why my father hasn’t returned all these years? Because some random merman was hoarding them in his room? Reading them every year just for entertainment? You have no idea how hard these years have been for me!”  
Lance listens guiltily to Keith’s rant, and when he is finished, Lance starts talking. “Okay, let’s be real here. If your father wanted to come home-” he cringes as Keith’s body loosens and his furious expression turns empty. But he continues. “-he would have come home already. It’s easy to find his way back. Listen, I’m really sorry about this. I should have let them pass by, I should have never-”  
“I’ll become an orphan.”   
Lance furrows his brows in concern. “An orphan? Where is your mom?”   
Keith shoots daggers at him. “I’m leaving.” He makes a move to jump off the rock, but Lance swims into his way and places his two hands on Keith’s chest, pushing him back. Damn, he was muscular.   
“Keith, I can help you,” Lance says, blushing. “Find your dad, I mean.”  
“You? Help me? You’re...you’re a monster!” Keith grinds his teeth.   
Lance is taken aback. “Me?” he retorts innocently. “A monster? More like you’re a monster! You’ve got legs!”  
“You have a fish tail!” Keith protests. “Just...let me leave. Please,” a note of desperation comes into his voice. “My mother is sick.”  
“Sick? How sick?”  
“They don’t know what to do about her. She gets worse by the day. And I’m the only one who lives with her. Oh, I should have just asked Hunk to throw the bottle out for me. I shouldn’t have learned how to swim. I just didn’t think I’d be a real man if I didn’t…And eomma didn’t want me to get near the water either…” Tears gather in Keith’s eyes, and he sniffles quietly, but no tears roll down his cheeks.  
“Who’s they?” Lance interrogates him, curiosity getting the better of him.   
“The doctors,” Keith’s voice is hardened now. “Are you gonna let me go back or not? They’re probably getting worried about me.”  
“Let me help you,” Lance insists. “I’ll take you back. But I will help you. There’s gotta be something we can do about your mamá. And I’ll find your papá, too.”  
Keith sighs. “I really don’t think you can,” he says, before pushing himself off the rock and attempting to freestyle back to shore.

The two somehow make it, Lance staying underwater and helping Keith stay afloat while he flutter kicks his way back to shore. His swimming is atrocious.   
“Bye, Keith!” Lance pops up behind Keith and whispers in his ear before diving back into the ocean to go back home. Then he disappears, just like that.   
Lance, huh? Keith thinks, ducking underneath the boundary ropes of the beach. He isn’t sure if whatever just happened was a dream or sunstroke or if it was actually real. The touch of Lance’s fingers still reverberate on Keith’s skin - it felt so real.   
Keith shudders - whether it was out of the creeps or wanting more of his touch, he didn’t know.   
Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, Coran, and Allura are all scattered around the beach, looking for him and yelling his name every so often. “I’m here!” Keith calls.   
Allura is the first to notice him, and starts running to the shore. “Keith! Where were you? You just disappeared, we’ve been looking for you for ages -” Keith climbs onto shore and is immediately embraced by his guardian. “-we were so worried, you had no idea, we’d thought you’d drowned - Shiro! Hunk, Pidge! Keith’s here! - are you okay? You look freezing, oh, let me get you to a warm place - Shiro! Will you grab me a towel for Keith? The poor thing, he’s shivering-”  
“Allura, I’m fine,” Keith laughs through chattering teeth. A warm, sun-soaked towel is wrapped around him and Allura leads him to a chair.   
“What happened out there?” Shiro asks him in his concerned “Dad” voice. It makes Keith homesick for a home that never existed. A home with a mom and a dad.  
Keith stays silent, shaking his head. He doesn’t want to talk about it - or think about it, for that matter. It hurt his head that merfolk, a myth, could have existed for all these years. It was probably a hallucination. It must have been a hallucination, caused by the sun.  
“You okay?” Hunk asks, putting a hand on his shoulder. Pidge sticks her head under Hunk’s arm, carrying the same worried expression.   
“Absolutely peachy,” Keith shivers, teeth chattering. It brings a smile to his friends’ faces.  
Coran twirls his mustache thoughtfully. “I thought I saw someone else out there. They seemed to be wearing a ridiculously bright blue wet suit!”   
Keith gives a throaty laugh. “Maybe a trick of the light?”   
Coran throws him a dubious look, then shrugs it off.   
“You’d better hurry on home, Keith,” Allura suggests. “Or else you might catch a fever like your mother’s.” Keith smiles weakly at that.  
“Then I’ll be going,” he responds. “Thanks for everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait! unfortunately for the ones who are enjoying this, you will have to wait another week or so before i upload again ;-; i'm going on vacation next week so i won't be able to upload at all!   
> if you are enjoying this, pls book mark so u can know when i update! i'm a slow writer sorry ahaha :


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